


All-Nighter

by pennflinn



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Gift Fic, M/M, Movie Night, Schmoop, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 05:11:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9056887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennflinn/pseuds/pennflinn
Summary: Barry has a special Christmas Eve tradition. Cisco is more than willing to take up the challenge.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RainbowVigilante](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainbowVigilante/gifts).



> Written for RainbowVigilante for Flashvibe Secret Santa 2016. Merry Christmas!

**11:53 pm Christmas Eve**

“Well, I’m heading to bed,” said Joe, heaving himself off the couch and to his feet. He swayed a bit and set down his mug, which read “Mery Chrismas Daddy 1997.”

Cisco could relate to the woozy feeling. He looked down into his own mug, which was in the shape of a slightly grotesque Santa head—giving him the feeling that he was drinking Santa’s brains a la _Indiana Jones_ , not Grandma Esther’s Eggnog. How the West family broke so many mugs but had failed to touch these terribly cheesy Christmas ones, Cisco couldn’t fathom. He downed the last of his eggnog and scrunched up his face at the burn.

“You two staying over tonight?” Joe asked Barry and Cisco, as Iris shuffled for the stairs and Wally made for the kitchen. “I have your old room set up as a guest room, Bar, and you’re welcome to use it.”

“Might as well,” Barry said. “No sense in going to our apartment now just to come all the way back in the morning.”

“You can get there and back in two seconds,” Cisco teased.

Barry yawned widely and shrugged. “The roads are slippery.”

“You should stay,” Wally offered, emerging from the kitchen. “Easier for me to wake you up if I don’t have to run all the way to your apartment. We’re opening presents at the crack of dawn, you hear?”

Iris, already at the top of the stairs and out of sight, let out a dramatic groan.

Joe lifted his eyebrows as if to say, _He does this every year_ , then he too retreated up the stairs. Wally was the last to go, three Christmas cookies piled up in one hand.

“You’re sure you’re good staying here tonight?” Barry asked. His eyebrows tilted in that odd way they did whenever he was nervous.

Cisco nodded, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. “I’d love nothing more.”

“Okay,” said Barry. “You can go upstairs if you’re tired. I’ll be up in a bit.”

“You’re staying down here?”

“Um.” A flush crept up Barry’s neck, almost as red as the over-large sweater he wore. “I kind of…stayupallnight.”

Cisco paused. “Say what?”

“I stay up all night,” Barry said, with the face of a sinner. “On Christmas Eve. I could never sleep as a kid, and now…now it’s just become tradition, I guess. I stay up all night.”

“You’re joking.”

“I wish I was.”

Cisco considered him, fighting to keep his jaw shut. Until now, they’d never experienced Christmas day together. This was their first year officially dating, the first year living together, the first year Cisco had felt comfortable accepting the Wests’ invitation to join them for the family Christmas. With this new piece of information, Cisco felt as though he’d unlocked an entirely new piece of Barry as well.

“Okay, so where do we start? Movies, or…video games…”

“It depends, I sometimes read a book all the way through, or yeah, watch a movie, or—” Barry blinked. “Wait. You said ‘we.’”

“I did, yes.” Cisco perched on the arm of the couch. “My boyfriend’s got a funky Christmas tradition. We do everything together. Why not this?”

Barry’s beaming was worth it already.

 

**12:25 am Christmas Day**

“I’m actually pretty jazzed about this, you know?” Cisco said. “It’s been a while since I’ve pulled a true all-nighter. And I’ve never even thought to do it before Christmas. Aren’t you exhausted the next day?”

“Typically, yes,” Barry said. “But not enough to stop me from doing it every year, clearly.”

He popped the DVD into his laptop. Cisco leaned back on the couch, watching Barry angle the laptop on the coffee table.

“What’s this again? _Holiday Express_?”

“ _Holiday Inn_ ,” Barry corrected. “Classic. If we fast-forward through the Abraham song, it’s actually pretty good. A really underrated Fred Astaire performance.” Barry cocked his head. “What I wouldn’t give to dance like him.”

“We should do dancing lessons together sometime,” Cisco said.

“Mm,” Barry agreed, hitting play and settling back. “That could be fun. Which one of us would be Ginger Rogers?”

“Obviously me, because I’m the more badass one.”

“That’s fair. Now, shh, the movie’s starting.”

 

**1:04 am Christmas Day**

“Nope, can’t do it.” Cisco stretched into his tenth position in half an hour and scrubbed at his eyes. “This is not working, I’m sorry.”

Barry’s face fell, just a touch. “You don’t like the movie?”

“I’m sure it’s a perfectly good movie when Grandma Esther’s eggnog is not dragging you screaming into unconsciousness,” Cisco said. “It’s a little slow.”

“But Fred Astaire’s great, isn’t he?”

“I would love to see you dance like Fred Astaire,” Cisco agreed. “How about something a bit more…I don’t know, suspenseful? Something that will help keep me awake.”

“ _Home Alone_?”

“No good,” said Cisco. “Too much suspension of disbelief. Plus, kid being forgotten by his family…” He swallowed thickly, and Barry’s sideways look prompted him to continue. “How about _Jurassic Park_?”

For a moment, he was worried Barry would pursue his slip in confidence, but, thankfully, the man took the proffered new subject. “You have trouble suspending your disbelief in _Home Alone_ but you’re perfectly okay with _Jurassic Park_?”

“Dinosaurs, man,” Cisco said. “Dinosaurs.”

 

**3:20 am Christmas Day**

With the _Jurassic Park_ credits rolling behind them, Barry and Cisco crept quietly to the darkened kitchen.

“I feel like a kid sneaking a cookie from the cookie jar,” Cisco said. “Santa’s naughty and nice lists are finalized by now, surely?”

“You’re probably safe,” Barry said. “I think you’ve been nice enough the rest of the year.”

As they squeezed through the doorway, Cisco heeded the impulse to draw close. “Guess I’ll have to work on remedying that next year.” And he lifted himself to his tip-toes and planted a kiss on Barry’s lips.

When he pulled away, Barry looked pleasantly stunned. “ _Jurassic Park_ really gets you going, doesn’t it?”

“You know it,” Cisco replied. “And there’s also mistletoe right above us.”

Barry looked up, registered the object, smirked. “Well, then.” Then he leaned down and captured Cisco’s lips again, more confident this time. Cisco closed his eyes and relished in the warmth, the darkness, the feeling of safety that Barry emulated.

It felt like hours later when they broke away. Cisco was the punch-drunk one this time, and it was only Barry’s light squeeze on his arm that grounded him.

“Can’t forget our mission,” he said conspiratorially. “Cookie run, remember?”

“Sure,” Cisco said. “Cookies.”

They loaded up on everything they could find in the kitchen—with two speedsters in the house, the Christmas treats had gone fast—and took their plates back to the darkened living room. Settled back on the couch, Barry put in the second _Jurassic Park_ movie, and Cisco started crunching on a huge chunk of peanut brittle.

“You’re going to have to turn it up now that we’re going to be munching,” he said, and Barry happily obliged.

 

**3:47 am Christmas Day**

Cisco, as invested as he was in the suspense of the film, nearly jumped out of his skin when Joe spoke from behind them.

“I thought I was imagining the dinosaur roars.”

Barry whirled, and Cisco clutched his heart. “Joe,” said Barry. “Don’t sneak up on us like that.”

Joe had the droopy look of sleep about him, like he’d just emerged from a dream, his white t-shirt and plaid pajama pants rumpled. “My room is right above this one. Mind turning down your dinosaur peril for an old man?”

“Of course, of course.” Barry reached over immediately and clicked down the volume on the laptop. “Sorry for being loud, Joe.”

“Eh, it would be fine if Wally wasn’t going to wake us all up at 6:30.” Joe turned to go, but halted in his tracks. He squinted. “Did you both eat all of the leftover sweets?”

The empty plates, filled with crumbs, still sat blatantly on the coffee table beside the laptop. Cisco rested his chin on the back of the couch. “You’d best go to back to bed, Joe.”

“Hrmph,” Joe grumbled, but he heeded Cisco’s advice and retreated back up the stairs.

When he was gone, Barry and Cisco turned back to the movie. “Well, this is no good,” said Barry. “Now I can’t hear anything. Here.” He reached down to the stash of random items beneath the coffee table and pulled out a set of earbuds. “If you don’t mind sharing.”

“Not at all.”

Barry plugged in the earbuds, and they each took one—forcing them to come closer together on the couch, not that Cisco minded. Connected by the thin white wire, they re-positioned, and Barry pulled a quilt over the both of them.

“Comfortable?” Barry asked.

Cisco murmured his assent, fixated on the glowing screen, and lay his head on Barry’s shoulder.

 

**4:42 am Christmas Day**

Cisco jerked to alertness again, his consciousness fluttering like the wings of an ensnared butterfly. He kicked a leg out from the blanket and pressed closer to Barry, who was finally beginning to notice the periodic twitches.

“You falling asleep on me?”

“I don’t understand,” Cisco whined. “It’s dinosaurs. This should be keeping me up.”

Not to mention, their roles were usually switched. Normally, Barry was the one who could pass out anywhere, and at a moment’s notice. Cisco was the one known to keep late hours, working in his lab, without signs of weakness. But now, perhaps because of Barry’s warmth, Cisco struggled to stay alert. Barry, on the other hand, showed no signs of wavering in his resolve.

“You don’t have to stay up with me,” Barry said for the fortieth time. “Honest. The bed is all made upstairs.”

“We’ve still got two more movies to go,” Cisco said stubbornly, but he could not hide the yawn. Barry just pulled him closer.

 

**5:24 am Christmas Day**

“Decorating the tree,” Barry said.

“Really?” Cisco blinked sleepily up at Barry, incredulous. “That’s your _favorite_ part of Christmas?”

The third _Jurassic Park_ played softly through the computer speakers. It was too quiet to make out most of the dialogue, but they’d abandoned the earbuds when conversation became too difficult. The living room was dark, and, with the muted chatterings from the movie, the space had adopted a still tranquility.

“It’s kind of fun,” Barry said with a shrug. “Every year you get to discover your favorite ornaments all over again, the things you only see once a year. A little like digging up old artifacts.”

“Dinosaur bones,” Cisco murmured drowsily.

“And yours?”

“Hmm?”

“Your favorite part of Christmas?”

“Oh.” Cisco considered this. On the laptop, a Pteranodon screeched. “The stockings. Waking up in the morning to the smell of my mom making eggs and seeing that my stocking had been magically filled overnight. It was always little stuff, but the little stuff is good.”

Barry’s thumb ran slow circles just above Cisco’s elbow. Cisco’s eyes drifted, then popped back open. And again. And again.

“What about all of the sweets?” Barry said, wrenching Cisco back to wakefulness. “I think we’ve both made an oversight in not mentioning all of the sweets that come out during Christmas time.”

“You’re right,” said Cisco. “Of course, you’re right.”

 

**5:55 am Christmas Day**

“Twenty-two.”

“Hm?” Barry asked bemusedly.

Cisco traced a finger over Barry’s jawline and to his throat, practically laying on top of him on the couch. The room flickered with low blue from the movie, just enough light to see by. Barry’s eyes glimmered with amusement, slightly red-rimmed from sleeplessness.

“I count twenty-two freckles on your face and neck,” said Cisco, poking one for effect. “And I love every one of them.”

“I don’t think this activity is helping you stay awake,” Barry said with a low laugh that sent vibrations through Cisco’s chest. He was probably right—now that he thought about it, Cisco was sure he’d double-counted some of those freckles near Barry’s hairline. He would have to start over. “Go to sleep, Cisco.”

“Never.”

 

**6:33 am Christmas Day**

“I’ve always loved this part.”

“Mm.”

“Cisco?”

The thudding of a heartbeat against his ear. A gentle kiss to the top of his head. A warmth and a darkness much more inviting than the creeping dawn.

“Good night, Cisco.”

 

**8:52 am Christmas Day**

Cisco emerged from sleep gradually, with immense effort. A blanket was wrapped so tightly about him he struggled even to extract an arm, and everything was so _soft_.

While he tried to open his eyes, he put together the pieces of his environment. Lying on a couch, check. Sunlight piercing his eyelids, check. The smell of brewing coffee, check.

The details all, miraculously, made sense at once. His eyes snapped open, and he sat up straight as a rod.

“Whoah, easy!” In his abruptness, he’d nearly headbutted Barry in the chin. The other man sat curled up on the couch beside him, a book in his hand. When Cisco blinked groggily at him, he grinned. “Merry Christmas!”

“I fell asleep,” Cisco said. His heart sank at the realization, all warmth and comfort gone in an instant. “I told you I would stay up with you, and I fell asleep.”

He still felt slightly woozy from the lack of sleep and the confusing wakefulness. He looked around, looked for signs of the pocket of nighttime he had seemingly been in just two moments before. The laptop was closed on the coffee table, their piles of blankets draped over the back of the couch, the cookie plates returned to the kitchen. Golden morning sunlight streamed through a window, making Cisco squint.

“I’m so sorry,” he finally said. He meant it, too. This was something special to Barry, something they could have shared.

But Barry put down his book and put a hand on each side of Cisco’s face to calm him. “You were great,” he said. “That’s the most fun I’ve had on Christmas Eve in a long time. I was glad to have the company.”

“But—”

“It was a perfect night, I promise,” Barry insisted. “Besides, how would Santa deliver your gifts if you were awake the whole time?”

“My gifts?”

For the first time, Cisco truly looked around the living room. The colorful lights of the Christmas tree were on, a fire roaring in the fireplace.

And, hanging just above it, beside the stockings for Joe, Iris, Barry, and Wally, was a new stocking. It was striped green and red, and at the top, in gold embroidery, was Cisco’s name. Like the others, it was stuffed full.

The sight stopped all of Cisco’s protests, all of his anxieties. He was ten years old again, and for an instant he thought he smelled his mother’s cooking.

In lieu of saying anything, he kissed Barry hard.

When they broke apart, both breathless, the stairs creaked behind them, and Iris skipped brightly over to the living room in her red pajamas. She took one look at the two of them and gave a suggestive wink.

“Looks like the two of you didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Cisco smiled at the jibe, but he had eyes only for Barry. “No,” he said. “No, we didn’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and happy holidays to you all!


End file.
